


ego amos vos

by usuallysunny



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Established Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Love Confessions, Season/Series 05, Soft Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Tribe Night (Lucifer TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27566428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usuallysunny/pseuds/usuallysunny
Summary: It’s Tribe Night andnothingis going to plan...It’s 9pm and they’re out of wine, Amenadiel calls Linda every time Charlie coughs, they’ve had to confiscate Ella’s phone to stop her texting her latest bad decision in a very long line of bad decisions, and Chloe can’t stop moping because Lucifer still hasn’t said "I love you."…and then Maze grins and translates what he’s saying when he whispers to her in that strange, lost language.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 28
Kudos: 471





	ego amos vos

“Ella Lopez!” Chloe put on her best stern voice, the one she normally reserved for Trixie when she caught chocolate cake smeared over her mouth before dinner, “get back here right now.”

Ella flinched, her lips twisting into a guilty grimace as she stalked backwards around the kitchen counter. Chloe slowly followed her, matching her step for step.

“I’m not texting him!”

The scientist’s voice was high and thin, a whine that reminded Chloe very _much_ of her sweet-toothed daughter. 

“Let me see your phone then,” she held out her hand and then her no-nonsense parent voice morphed into her detective one, “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ll co-operate.”

Ella blinked before she took another step back, the incriminating evidence clutched tightly in her hand. They were stuck in a standoff for one long beat before she squealed and ran around the counter. Chloe chased her, determined to stop her from making her latest bad decision in a string of bad decisions, and heard her grunt as she ran into the solid wall of Maze’s chest. The demon had blocked her in from the other side of the kitchen counter and she triumphantly swiped the phone out of her hands.

Ella huffed, the rush of air blowing back a stray strand of dark hair that had escaped her ponytail.

Chloe crossed her arms over her chest, leaning a hip against the counter. Her brow arched, _totally_ unimpressed, as Maze opened her latest text and began to reel off the emojis.

“Popcorn, snowflake— _Netflix and chill?—_ eggplant, honeypot, cancer sign, sweat droplets,” Maze paused, her dark painted lips twisting into a salacious grin, “Ellen, you _slut!”_

Ella flushed, bright pink painted high on her cheekbones, as she lurched forward and grabbed for the phone.

Chloe pulled her back, a sigh escaping her lips. Her hand gently wrapped around the crook of her elbow and she made her face her.

“Ella, jokes aside, we’re worried about you,” she implored, her brows knitting into a frown, “I can’t even imagine how hard it’s been after everything with P—” she paused, the name like poison on her tongue, and judging by the way Ella flinched, she didn’t want to hear it either, “—I just don’t want you to slide back into old habits. You deserve so much more than these _losers_.”

Chloe didn’t know this latest fling personally, but judging by the length of his rap sheet (“I’m _just_ looking out for a friend!” she had sniffed when she’d glanced up from his record on her police laptop to catch Lucifer’s amused smirk), she didn’t need to. And she didn’t need to be Linda to know that Ella’s pain was manifesting in self-destructive behaviour.

Ella blinked, a flicker of hurt passing over her pretty features before she released a defeatist sigh.

“You’re right,” she muttered before repeating herself more emphatically at Chloe’s unsure expression, “you’re _right—_ I won’t text him anymore.”

She didn’t believe her, didn’t believe it was that easy, and perhaps she knew it wasn’t her place anyway. She could share her opinion but she wasn’t her babysitter or her mother and Ella had to figure this one out for herself.

As her friend, she would be with her until she did, so she placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“How touching,” Maze said dryly before casually slipping the phone into her bra, “but it’s still _Tribe Night_ , so I’ll be keeping this.”

Ella rolled her eyes in defeat and Chloe slung an arm around her shoulders, giving her a sympathetic pat.

Before they could say anything else, Maze was yelling, turning her attention to someone else on their phone.

“That applies to you too, Linda!”

The therapist’s eyes snapped to them, a wild look of frustration in them. She held a finger up, an apology written on her face.

“I _told_ you, Amenadiel,” she sighed, exasperated, as she held her phone to her ear with one hand and pinched the bridge of her nose with the other, “it’s just a cold!”

She rolled her eyes at whatever he replied.

“ _Yes_ , another one. We humans do tend to get more than one in our lifetimes. It’s not a big deal.”

Maze stormed over, grabbing the phone from her hand.

“Amenadiel, I swear to your _Dad_ if you call one more time, I will come over and shove that phone down your throat. Maybe you’ll find your balls down there too.”

Linda blinked.

“ _Bit dramatic_ ,” she muttered under her breath while Maze pressed _hang up_ , cutting Amenadiel’s reply off before he could make it. 

“Maze, I hardly think the fact that Amenadiel worries about his son means he has no balls—”

The demon cut Chloe off too, holding a hand out as she shoved Linda’s phone in her bra to join Ella’s.

“I trust Lucifer can occupy himself for _one_ night without you?” she asked dryly, adjusting her boobs, “because frankly, if I need to take yours too, I’ll have to find somewhere else to put it.”

Chloe’s mouth pinched, confident her phone would be staying _exactly_ where it was—in her pocket, _not_ down her friend’s skin tight leather pants.

She was also confident she wouldn’t need it. No matter how close they got, how much time they spent together, Lucifer was his own man. She’d tied him down into monogamy— _and occasionally in other ways that made her blush_ —but he liked his freedom, raging against any attempt to shackle him. She did too, was headstrong and independent, and they didn’t hang off each other’s coattails.

Besides, she was pretty sure he thought phones were exclusively for sexting or emergencies, with no in-between. She couldn’t see any disasters in the immediate future and she would _not_ be sexting him with Maze, Linda and Ella around—no matter how many strings of nonsensical emojis or quips about _girl-on-girl_ action he sent her.

“Yes, I think he’ll live,” she answered sarcastically as they all settled on the sofas.

Ella was the last to get there, a bowl of snacks under her arm as she rifled through the refrigerator.

“You sure?” Maze was still teasing Chloe, making a gagging sound, “that devil is _whipped._ I’m surprised he doesn’t have to tell you he loves you every half hour.”

Chloe and Linda’s eyes slid to Ella, still blissfully unaware of Lucifer’s true nature, but her head was still safely stuck in the fridge. 

“Nope,” Chloe popped the ‘p’ dryly, “definitely doesn’t tell me that.”

Maze quirked a brow in interest.

“Oooh, do I detect some _bitterness_?” she grinned, “trouble in paradise?”

Chloe grumbled, her eyes darting around for the fruity rosé Linda had brought with her. There was already a pleasant buzz thrumming through her veins, but she definitely needed to be full on drunk for this conversation.

All she saw was empty bottles—and it became clear what Ella was searching for.

“Nada!” she exclaimed in disappointment, closing the fridge door, “we’re all out of alcohol.”

“Ellen, why don’t you run to the store while we get to the bottom of what’s bothering Decker?” Maze crooned, leaning back and adjusting some cushions on the sofa so she could get more comfortable. Chloe narrowed her eyes. She knew that look.

Maze was about to meddle.

Ella huffed but grabbed her purse.

“Fine,” she pouted, “but leave the juicy parts for when I get back! I _live_ for Deckerstar drama.” 

She threw her jacket over her shoulders and left, the door clicking shut behind her. Chloe felt bad for her, bad for keeping her in the dark, but it wasn’t her secret to tell. Lucifer always shied away from the idea, wary because of how Chloe and Dan had reacted, and he hated the idea of dimming Ella’s sparkle, that light she carried with her. It had already struggled after Pete, a flame that fought against the wind to stay alight, and he wanted to keep her unburdened for a little longer. 

“Now _she’s_ gone…” Maze drawled, “spill it, Decker.”

Chloe sighed, all those pesky feelings of insecurity and doubt rearing their ugly heads.

“I mean, it can’t be the sex,” Maze was continuing before she could answer, “we both know how good _that_ ride is.”

She gestured to Linda whose awkward smile was more like a grimace.

“Yes, thank you for the reminder,” Chloe muttered. She was right, it certainly _wasn’t_ the sex—which was mind blowing, to say the least—but an entirely different kind of intimacy. “Everything’s fine, it’s just…” she sighed and decided to rip the band-aid off, “he still hasn’t said _I love you_.”

Maze and Linda glanced at each other.

“Oh, I could only have helped if it was sex,” Maze said blankly, giving a little shrug, “you can take this one.”

Linda crossed one leg over the other and studied her with that patient expression.

“It can be… _difficult_ for people to express something they’ve never felt before,” she started, slipping into therapist mode, “I think we can all agree Lucifer is a complicated man, with a multitude of complicated issues. He doesn’t feel things quite the same way we do—but it doesn’t mean he _doesn’t_ feel them. I mean, he’s certainly a _passionate_ man, wild but fiercely loyal, and I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you.”

Chloe nodded in agreement. She understood all that, she _did,_ and yet—

She couldn’t quite squash that niggling voice in the back of her mind— _Michael’s voice_ —the one telling her that Lucifer would never completely open up to her. That he would never love her as much as she loved him.

She wondered if it was even possible. She loved him so much, it made her ache, the intensity of it quite literally taking her breath away. She loved his looks, from his stubble lined sharp jaw to his ridiculously expensive tailored suits. Sometimes she’d catch him just leaning against the wall in the precinct, looking handsome and strong and not doing anything in particular, and she couldn’t believe she got to call him _hers_. She loved his scent, all whiskey and smoke and woodsy cologne. She loved the way he teased, his biting humour and intoxicating confidence. She loved the way he commanded a room, in control of its very energy. She loved how fond he was of Trixie, how he would rip the world apart to protect her, despite insisting children were all insufferably boring. She loved his kindness and his heart and all the parts of himself he only gave to her.

She loved _him_ , and she knew he loved her too. She read it in his actions and his touch and his kiss, but—

“I just wish he’d _say_ it now and then,” she whispered miserably.

Linda smiled sympathetically while Maze rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, it’s not like he’s not a talker,” she quipped.

“Tell me about it,” Chloe sighed, “he’s even started speaking to me in this weird language. It’s like… all I want to hear is those three little, _tiny_ words and he gives me a whole other language instead. Go figure.”

Maze cocked her split brow, her curiosity piqued.

“What does he say?”

Chloe huffed.

“Not a clue. He normally whispers it into my neck after we’ve—” she felt her cheeks flush, remembering how his voice would go all husky and low in the afterglow, lined with so much devotion and reverence as he murmured in that lost language, “—well, you know. I ask him what it means but he just shakes his head and kisses me. And he always talks in his sleep, but lately he’s been talking in this rather than English. I recorded it one night and ran it through a translator but— _nothing_.”

She flushed again, realising how crazy she sounded, but the sad truth was… she _had_ grown a little obsessed with him.

“Well, _duh_. It’s probably one of the archaic, lost languages we still speak in hell,” Maze answered, “did it sound anything like this? _Ek is 'n selfsugtige begroeide kind wat moet leer om sy vriende beter te behandel_.”

Her voice had morphed into a subhuman growl, hoarse and demonic and nothing like the dulcet tones Lucifer crooned when he was cradled between her thighs. Linda’s eyes were wide as she subtly scooted away from her.

“No!” Chloe exclaimed, “it’s way… _smoother_ than that. Softer.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, “not Lilim then.”

“Do I even want to know what you said?”

“Nothing that wasn’t true, Decker,” she quipped cheerfully before her eyes dragged down to Chloe’s pocket, “do you still have the recording? I’ll listen, see if I can translate.”

She nodded, pulling the phone out of her pocket and swiping it open. She pressed _play_ and held it between them.

His voice floated through the screen, silken and sharply accented, and Chloe’s heart gave a depressingly predictable lurch.

“It _is_ one of our languages,” Maze said immediately, “not Lilim or tongues or any of the harsher ones we used to terrorise. This one was one of his favourites. He brought it with him from the Silver City and taught me how to speak it. It doesn’t have a name but it’s kind of like a mixture of Latin and the romance languages.”

Chloe nodded, deeply intrigued and thinking it made sense—it always sounded heavenly and beautiful, even if she didn’t know what the words meant—and Linda was leaning in closer too.

Maze’s head was tipped to the side, her brows knitted in concentration and then rising to her hairline every time she heard something particularly ridiculous.

“ _Fetch me the goat_ ,” she drawled, rolling her eyes, “ _it’s not my responsibility to keep the chains warm,”_ she smirked at that one before her expression suddenly fell, turning more solemn as she whispered, _“Dad, I’m sorry, please don’t make me…”_

Chloe felt the words like an ache in her chest, this confirmation that he still hurt from the fall. He didn’t ask for any of this. He didn’t want to be a monster; he _wasn’t_ a monster—not to her.

His voice was still purring through the phone and her ears suddenly sparked with a familiar phrase.

“That!” she exclaimed, “ _that’s_ what he always whispers to me.”

Maze took the phone and rewound the recording slightly. She listened closely and then, ever so slowly, her lips twisted into a soft, _genuine_ smile.

“What?” Chloe breathed, “what does it mean?”

She held her gaze and paused the recording.

“It means _I love you_.”

Chloe froze, her eyes and throat burning.

“Really?” her whisper felt choked, thick with pure emotion.

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Decker,” Maze said fiercely.

She pressed play and stopped again when she recognised some more little words and phrases.

“What do these mean?”

Maze rolled her eyes and made a gagging sound, but there was a persistent smile tugging at her lips.

“Just gross things like _forever, always_ and _love of my life.”_

Chloe sat back, her mind trying to process it, and Linda was smiling too.

“This must make it easier for him,” she explained, her tone light with equal parts happiness for her friend and a professional curiosity, “kind of like testing the waters, saying it on his own terms—or _practicing_ , while you can’t understand the words.”

Chloe rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, not really caring about the why, because he’d _said_ it and he _loved_ her.

Her heart felt too big for her chest, her breath shallow, and by the time Ella returned with the wine she’d been craving, her stomach was too full of butterflies to drink it.  
  


* * *

  
He was asleep by the time she crawled into his bed.

She let her fingers trace gently over his face, the elegant slope of his nose, the softness of his pillowy lips, the grit of his stubble. She placed a hand on his bare chest, feeling the taut, strong muscles under her palm, and leaned in to place a gentle kiss on his still mouth.

He shifted under her, those dark brown eyes opening groggily. She felt, more than heard, the pleased hum that rolled from his chest.

“Hi,” she whispered against his lips, feeling them curve into a smile against hers.

“Mmm, hello,” he crooned.

His voice was gritty from sleep, that accent a little rough, and he was _perfect_. He leaned up this time, capturing her lips in another soft kiss. When they broke away, he cradled her face in his hands, his fingers threading through her honey hair.

“What are you doing here?” he husked, “not that I’m complaining, Detective.”

She shifted, giving him another peck before she swung a leg over his hips. She settled in his lap, his hands soothingly rubbing her thighs either side of his hips.

“Did Maze set the curtains on fire again?” he asked, referencing the last time _Tribe Night,_ that time at Linda’s, was cut short.

She huffed in amusement, her hands stroking absently on his chest. The truth was far more simple; the girls had left and Trixie was at Dan’s and there was nowhere she would rather be.

“I just missed you.”

His mouth tipped into a lazy grin, sluggish from sleep but just as beautiful as always.

She leaned down, skimming her mouth along his sharp jaw. She breathed him in, all whiskey and smoke, and remembered those words he’d whispered to her. The ones she knew now.

“ _ego amos vos.”_

She felt him stiffen under her, his muscles growing taut with surprise. Her mouth trailed down to the hollow of his throat, planting a kiss there, and she felt the movement of his adam’s apple as he swallowed.

“Do you now?”

She nodded and kissed along his jaw, the grit of his stubble rough against her lips.

“Maze told me what it means.”

He glanced at her uneasily, looking unsure and uncertain and vulnerable in a way he only was with her. She realised the gravity of what she had done then. She had teased him open for her, shattered the barrier behind those dark and secretive eyes, the smile that never quite reached them. She had turned him into a different devil, a different man.

She sat up again, entwining her fingers with his where they laid on her thighs.

“I didn’t know how to say it,” he murmured, his tone a little sad, and her heart ached for him again.

“I don’t know why I was so determined to hear it,” she realised then, talking more to herself than to him, “you show it all the time. You’re so good to me, Lucifer. So good to Trixie. You show it with every touch and every kiss and in the way you always, _always_ have my back.”

He was practically preening at the praise, his eyes sparkling.

They held everything he couldn’t bring himself to say. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before.

“Well, you’re only human, my darling,” he quipped, “and you humans love to be praised.”

She rolled her eyes at his hypocrisy; they both knew there was nothing the devil enjoyed more than having his ego stroked. 

“Maze said those words come from the Silver City,” she said quietly, “from heaven… do you miss it?”

He seemed to consider that for a moment before he shook his head.

“It was never home,” he said lowly, “and hell certainly wasn’t either. The only place I’ve ever felt like I belonged… is with you.”

She smiled down at him again, her heart achingly full.

“Well, it’s a beautiful language,” she insisted and then whispered the words again, just to feel them on her tongue, “ _ego amos vos.”_

He smiled—gentle, but _blinding._

“I love you too, darling.”

**Author's Note:**

> "ego amos vos" is made up, I think they're all Latin words but I very much only speak English so 🤷🏼
> 
> EDIT: apparently it might be Portuguese but the jury's out on that one! not sure how that happened haha but lets go with it.
> 
> I used good old google translate for Maze's Lilim part, and used Afrikaans as this is what Lesley-Ann Brandt speaks in the S4 episode. It should mean something like "I'm a selfish manchild who needs to learn to treat his friends better," because if that isn't Maze's opinion of Lucifer I don't know what is!! 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed! I don't know what it is with me and the fluff lately, but let's roll with it😏


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